Best cleaner to restore Exhaust look

[Bob T]

Just bought a Buell with exhaust that was never cleaned. Maybe something simple like steel wool and metal polish ? But I was afraid the steel wool may leave rust speckles. Any ideas

 

[Cooter]

Steel wool will work OK with WD-40 as a lubricant and will clean the tubes really well. Too coarse will scratch and too fine won't work quickly, but get a good brand either way. The Harbor Freight stuff is terrible. You can also use emery cloth in the finer grades to get a uniform finish all around the tube by wrapping it around and see-sawing it.

I would LOVE to have polished headers, but I gave up and heat wrapped them instead to save my right inner thigh :upset:

 

[user_deleted]

Just bought a Buell with exhaust that was never cleaned. Maybe something simple like steel wool and metal polish ? But I was afraid the steel wool may leave rust speckles. Any ideas

bob: there's a 100 different methods and recommendations to clean/polish buell headers. it is NOT necessary to remove them but all involved patience and "elbow grease". if they are lightly pitted and/or appear to have contaminants embedded into the surface then a light sanding with #400 emery cloth is the first step. next step is coarse green-colored scotchbrite pads and PB blaster....which works much better than WD-40. cut into a few strips so that you can wrap it around certain portions of each tube and use a sawing-method to clean hard-to-reach areas.
finished product should look like this...will turn an appealing gold hue after some riding.
if you desire that polished-stainless look then final step is polishing with any sort of metal polish such as mothers....3M...the list of quality polishes is endless.